ARMAGEDDON & SON GN REVIEW

[Ovid]

Reviewer: T. Martin, khpa3665@yahoo.co.uk
Story Title: Armageddon & Son

“Omigod. We never actually go through with it.”

Writer and Letterer: John Layman
Artist: Dave Dumeer
Editor: Randal C. Jarrell
Production Assistance: Keith Wood
96 pages; $9.95 U.S.
Published by: Oni Press

Earlier this week Daniel Craig was announced as the new James Bond. Set against the backdrop of Tower Bridge, Craig arrived at the press conference by power boat, flanked by Royal Marines. It was a consummate piece of theatre and a PR coup.

Or it would have been if Craig’s mum hadn’t blabbed the whole thing to the press a day previously.

If superspies can have problems with their hapless mums, then criminal masterminds can find their sons equally troublesome. Or so runs the premise of John Layman and Dave Dumeer’s new graphic novel, Armageddon & Son. Doon Feeney is a total cretin. His father, he soon finds out, is a criminal mastermind bent on destroying the world. Unfortunately for both Doon and his dad some of the elder Feeney’s associates from the evil consortium of C.L.A.W. are unhappy about his latest attempt to kill them. As a result father and son are forced to team up with Britain’s greatest superspy the Falcon to save the the planet from Feeney Snr’s own plan. After all, he doesn’t want C.L.A.W. to get all the glory for wiping out humanity.

This is ostensibly a spoof on James Bond, The Avengers and the like. As such, it hardly sails uncharted waters. There is a long tradition of such parodies, from Carry On Spying and Get Smart to most recently the Austin Powers series. I can’t really say that Layman and Dumeer have found a new take. They concentrate on the villains (the Falcon is played relatively straight), but then Mike Myers did something similar with Dr Evil, including a villainous father-son relationship. The jokes here are therefore familiar and with the exception of a rather good running gag about people just not staying dead (which works doubly in the comics medium!), on the level of spoof this graphic novel doesn’t really work. I found it amusing rather than laugh-out-loud funny. Nonetheless humour is a very personal thing, so don’t take my word for it: check it out for yourself with Oni’s generous 24-page preview.

Subsequent readings pay off in a slightly different way. The Austin Powers series, as well as most of the other parodies, have been fairly light whereas Armageddon & Son is much darker. In tone therefore it’s far more akin to Dr Strangelove: this book could even be renamed How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. There is slapstick, but overall the humour is bleak, almost cynical. In an afterword, Layman says that this was originally conceived as a miniseries but later re-envisioned as a GN because that would better bring out the comedy. It was a wise decision: the real strength of the book is not the gags but the gallows humour, something that relies far more on atmosphere than quick-fire timing.

This is not to say the book is nihilist at all. It does have a heart, if a rather twisted one. In a reverse of the Dr Evil/Scott dynamic, all Doon wants is his father’s love. Of course, Doon is also an idiot. Feeney Snr has no interest in his son whatsoever except in so far as Doon continues the family tradition of trying to rule the world. The resolution is sick but surprisingly touching. It’s the strongest part of the book.

The preview makes any review of the art kind of redundant, but let me just say what I liked about it. Dumeer’s layouts are dynamic. He would draw a good action comic. His art is detailed for what is essential, and ignores what isn’t. Thus there are a number of great panoramic shots, but otherwise backgrounds get short shrift. Faces on the other hand are wonderfully characterised. Feeney Snr is clearly an older version of Doon and they share mannerisms as well. Doon and his brother Howie meanwhile resemble each other closely but are still perfectly distinguishable. The one criticism I do have is that Dumeer doesn’t draw beautiful women. His ‘babes’ look really quite freakish.

In sum, this book doesn’t really work as a parody, but is successful as a black comedy with a heart. If you like a little bit of sweetness, but only when buried under a tonne of sour, then this book is for you. Recommended.

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[Anand Khatri]

Sounds like my kind of book. Great review T.